A few more pictures from the farm to wrap up that set.

ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/1250 sec.  Just another with an extreme aperture that completely blurs the background and isolates the main subject while giving no information about the location.  In this case the shallow depth of field is great for minimizing the distractions.  This is really a singular theme photo made using a singular theme aperture.

ISO 200, f/3.5, 1/125 sec.  A slightly smaller, yet still an isolation aperture isolates the main apple from the background leaves and apples.  The highlights in the background take on the polygon shape of the aperture mechanism in the lens.  With a slightly deeper depth of field it is easier get the main subject in focus.

ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/500 sec.  Another extreme aperture was used to isolate the main flower.  The other flowers and buds are close enough that they are recognizable but don’t distract from the main subject.  The ground in the background is really out focus and not too distracting.

Continuing around the country house I came across this birdhouse on a post.  I decided to try out a couple different apertures and I wish I had kept going and taken it to the extreme small apertures for a full comparison, but these two give a good comparison of two somewhat different apertures.  I should have bumped up the ISO and taken one with a story telling aperture (my 50 mm prime goes down to f/22 which would have made the background much clearer).

ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/3200 sec.

ISO 200, f/11, 1/80 sec.

The first photo has a very narrow depth of field and almost completely isolates the birdhouse.  The DOF is in fact so shallow that even parts of the birdhouse are noticeably out of focus.  The background is so blurred that it is unrecognizable and the birdhouse could really be anywhere.  At this large aperture the spot highlights in the trees (often called bokeh) take on some interesting characteristics (a topic for another time).

the smaller aperture of the second photo leads to a much deeper depth of field and though the background is still blurred it is much more recognizable (and some may say more distracting from the birdhouse).

It is not always necessary to go to the extreme of f/1.8 to isolate the subject, especially if you want the entire subject to be in sharp focus.  Perhaps f/2.8 or f/4 would have been a good alternative that significantly blurred the background but kept the entire birdhouse in focus.  If the desire of this photo is to show off the rustic birdhouse then the first photo here is a good aperture to use.  If the birdhouse was in a unique or interesting setting then the smaller aperture (wider or deeper depth of field) would be more suitable to show off the birdhouse and its surroundings.

In this case i feel that the background isn’t very interesting and distracts from the main subject.  I like the first photo better.  I actually feel that the blurring of the extremities of the birdhouse due to the extreme aperture setting adds some interesting depth to the photo.

Another from the country house.  This is rusty.

ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/1600 sec.

The results of this one are slightly different than the last one because even though the same aperture (the fastest my 50 mm prime will go) was used, the background isn’t as blurred as it was with the birdhouse.  This is because my subject, rusty, is further away from the camera than the birdhouse was and the ratio of the distance to the subject to the distance to the background is not as extreme.  This means that you won’t get the same extreme blurring of the background and you can still make out what the background is.  If I wanted to blur the background beyond recognition I would need to move closer to the subject, and therefore see less of it (with the same focal length).

The shallow depth of field works here because the focus of this photo is the horse sculpture, not the house.  The blurred house gives a hint as to the sculpture’s environment, but if it were in clear focus the horse would not stand out as much.

We were at a country house the other day (scoping out the location for our wedding pictures) and I was walking around looking for some shallow depth of field opportunities.  With the assignment in mind a decided to solely use the 50 mm prime lens because it has a much smaller aperture than my zoom lens and therefore a much shallower depth of field.

ISO 400, f/1.8, 1/2000 sec.

I thought this was a cool birdhouse and I didn’t want to take just a normal picture of it centred with the tree as the only background, but I also didn’t want distractions in the distance on the right hand side of the image.  The solution was to use a wide open aperture, focus on the birdhouse and the distant background would blur enough to not distract from the subject.  I think it works well for this picture. Even the tree starts to blur a little as it fads away with this extreme aperture.

I did find that sometimes f/1.8 gave too shallow of a depth of field and it made it too difficult to get the subject in clear focus.  More on that later.

A couple weekends ago we were in Nova Scotia for a wedding and stopped by Peggy’s Cove on the way back to the airport.  I took several shots of the lighthouse but then I saw some pools of water trapped in the rocks and I thought I would try for some reflection shots.  This meant using a deepish depth of field to get both the refletion, the rocks around the reflection and the distant lighthouse in focus.

ISO 500, f/11, 1/500 sec.

If I were to do this again I would use a smaller aperture, but it seems to work fairly well.  The distant lighthouse could be in slightly better focus, but it works.